Giboulées de Mars
by MilaHannah
Summary: March isn't the best month at Hogwarts, mostly because of all the rain. But this year, March might be important for Fred.  title   French equivalent of "April showers"... But in March.
1. Broken bottles of ink

**Chapter one: Broken bottles of ink.**

Another rainy day at Hogwarts. March really is not the best month of the year, especially here. Especially now. The clock is about to ring and everybody is running to escape from the pouring rain, pushing anybody who gets in the way. Even the prefects, apparently.

"Get out of the way, Granger!" a tall guy yelled at her.

A Slytherin, what a surprise... But Hermione did not have the time to step away, and the boy shoved her. She tripped, then fell on the wet ground.

"You know I can take points from you, right?" she hissed.

"Who cares? Take ten points from us, if you want. Snape will give them back to us as soon as we get to our Potions class."

Before the Slytherin guy and his friends walked away, the leader of the group kicked in one of the books that fell from the young girl's bag and sent it in a muddy puddle. His gang burst out laughing and they finally left.

"Stupid, stupid third years..." she said as she started to gather all the things that got out of her bag when she fell. One of her bottles of ink was broken. Ah, what a day.

-0-

A little bit further away, in a dry corridor, people were watching and making fun of the people outside.

"Hey Fred! Aren't we lucky we were already inside when it started raining ?"

"Very lucky, George!"

The Weasley twins began to laugh, mocking a group of first years trying to run without tripping on their robes.

"Faster, faster!" they giggled when the children finally got into the corridor.

But as George was literally bended in half by the laughter, Fred noticed the scene between Hermione and the Slytherins. Seeing such a nice girl as Hermione Granger being bullied by idiots like them really enraged him, but he did not want anybody to know how he really felt about her – maybe because he did not know himself – so he did not say or do anything about what just happened. Not until George had to left for class, anyway. It was almost too late, there were only a few books on the floor now, but he still wanted to help his _friend_.

"Let me help you with that." he said as he approached Hermione.

"It's nothing really." She said without even looking at him, too busy gathering her quills without damaging them even more.

Fred sighed but did not give up so easily.

"Hermione, you can barely hold your bag close and pick up this pen at the same time. You need a helping hand."

He carefully got the broken glass away from the young girl's knees and got his wand out of his sleeve. After mumbling a little spell, the bottle was fixed.

"Guess you'll have to add some ink later, though!" he laughed.

Fred just noticed, but Hermione had stopped picking up her quills. She was now staring at the young man in surprise.

"What?"

"Thank you." She whispered, blushing. "You're going to be late." Hermione added as she quickly looked away.

"Psht, who cares?"

"Mh, teachers?"

"They don't count."

Hermione's eyebrows started to frown as she sighed, but they relaxed again when she began to laugh.

"You really don't care about class this year, do you?"

"Well, let's just say Umbridge isn't the most motivational person in the world."

"She could punish you, though." She muttered.

Hermione grabbed Fred's left hand in hers and checked the scars on the back of it. The skin was still red from yesterday's detention hour. It was not bleeding anymore though.

"We found a little cure to prevent the blood from flooding so much. Well, it gives you nausea for two good hours, but it's worth it I guess!"

Hermione laughed lightly before really frowning this time.

"You should be a little less…"

"Yes?"

"Take care, Fred." She simply whispered.

She closed her bag and stood up before Fred and helped him get on his feet. Her right hand lingered on Fred's arm for a few seconds as she thanked him for helping her. Before the young man could say anything, Hermione was rushing through the corridors, heading towards the library.


	2. I try with a little help from my friends

**Chapter two: I try with a little help from my friends.**

Later this day, right before dinner, Hermione ran into George in the common room. She did not know why, but he was staring at her, smirking. She decided to ignore him and focus on her book and Crookshanks purring on her lap. Without her noticing, George made his way toward her and stopped right behind the young girl.

"So, miss Granger…" he whispered almost in her ear.

She couldn't hold a gasp and shivered a little bit.

"I'm studying, George." She calmly said.

"Oh, I know. I just wanted to ask you a little something."

"What do you want?" she asked as she turned around to face him.

George smiled and leaned against her chair.

"Don't you feel guilty, as a prefect, for making my brother late to class? It cost him an hour of detention, you know?"

Hermione's eyes widened.

"Oh my—really?"

"Oh yeah. That's bad, miss Granger. Really bad."

"I—I didn't want him to— George!"

The young girl relaxed again when she caught a glimpse of Fred entering the room through the portrait.

"Oh well." George said, shrugging, as Fred was walking towards them. "That was funny while it lasted."

"That was cruel."

"No, it was actually cute. You should have seen your face!"

Hermione groaned and turned around again to go back to her book. She could feel her cheeks starting to burn, so she pressed one of her hands against her face to cool her skin.

George walked away and joined his brother halfway. From her seat, the young girl could hear him teasing Fred. At some point, she thought she heard him say "Are you blushing too, brother?".

-0-

During dinner, Fred could not help but looking at Hermione. She was a few seats away with his younger brother and Harry – as usual – frowning at some disgusting thing Ron just did with a piece of chicken.

"You know you have a fork and a knife here, Ronald. You'd probably put a lot less grease on your face if you used them. And you'd make a lot let noise too."

From his table, Fred chuckled.

"Something funny, brother?" George asked, poking him in the arm with a spoon. "Or are you just really enjoying staring at Granger?"

Taken aback, Fred did not answer his twin's question and just waved the spoon away.

"Your silence speaks volumes, dear." Angelina whispered to Fred, not wanting George to hear her. "Your brother isn't the only one who noticed."

The young man turned to face his friend and raised his eyebrows.

"What do you mean he isn't the only one?"

"Don't worry.", she laughed. "I meant I have noticed too. The others are too busy looking at other girls, or boys."

A sigh of relief escaped Fred's lips and his eyebrows lowered as he relaxed.

"You scared me."

"Sorry about that." She shrugged. After swallowing a few mouthfuls of lamb stew, she started to whisper again. "The question is: why aren't you doing anything about _that_?"

Against his own will, Fred started laughing. A nervous laugh, not a mocking one.

"What?" Angelina asked, surprised.

"Because there's this thing between her and my brother, that's why!"

"George?" she exclaimed, almost choking on her food.

"Yes?" the other twin replied.

Angelina and Fred both shook their head at him and George returned to eating his meat.

"I meant Ron." Fred hissed. "They have this weird friendship that almost looks like a platonic relationship… I think it's kind of weird, but then again, maybe it's just jealousy."

"There is nothing between them. I can assure that. Not yet, anyway. I talked to her the other day and she said she did not consider Ron this way, that she had views on someone else."

Fred's cheeks blushed as he hoped Hermione was talking about him. His hopes were quickly replaced by the fear of the opposite: what if she was talking about someone else? He'd just have to give up!

"Do something before she ends up with someone else, you numpty." Angelina laughed, poking Fred with yet another spoon. He kind of saw a pattern there, but didn't say anything about it.


	3. After all we need sweets

**Chapter 3: After all, we need sweets every now and then.**

That night, Hermione had trouble sleeping. She had a feeling something was about to happen, but she could not tell if it was going to be good or not – divination was never her thing, anyway. She did not have class this morning but she went out of the girls' dorm as soon as she saw the smaller clock hand hit seven. Downstairs, the common room was empty and the fires in the chimneys were all growing weak, leaving a light smell of burnt wood and just a little bit of warmth all around the place.  
>Hermione sat in a big and comfortable chair next to a window and stared at the park outside for a few minutes. It was raining – again – but a few rays of sunlight were piercing through the thick grey clouds filling up the sky. It was not as beautiful as in the spring, but the young girl had to admit the view was not so bad.<p>

Suddenly, the sound of a little bell interrupted her thoughts. Crookshanks was under one of the big wooden desks, playing – more like juggling, really – with a little purple bag. Hermione decided to let her cat play around with it but quickly changed her mind when her pet managed to open the bag which appeared to be full of wrapped candies.

"Crookshanks, don't touch that!" she said, rushing toward the little bag. "You'll start vomiting again if you eat those things!"

Once she had the candies in hands, the young witch stared at them for a moment. They did not look like the ones that got her cat ill a few months ago – a first year bought them from the Weasley twins and forgot them on a chair when he went to sleep, which lead to Crookshanks eating all of them out of curiosity and gluttony. In fact, _those_ wrapped candies looked completely innocent, you could even say they looked mouth-watering. Digging deeper into the purple, velvety bag, Hermione found a folded piece of paper.

"What is th—"

The note was addressed to _her_.

"Hermione," she started reading out loud, "I had a feeling you would be here before anybody else (it is probably 7am right now haha), so I thought I'd leave you something to fill your stomach until breakfast." She paused for a second or two and lightly giggled. "Don't worry, they're just peppermint patties."

-0-

"What's that?" Ron asked.

"What's _what_, Ronald?" Hermione sighed as she closed her book.

"That." Her friend said, pointing at the purple velvety thing coming out of Hermione's bag. "It looks like one of those bags my mom uses when she sends us gifts."

The young girl choked, but Ron did not look like he noticed.

"I— I found it in the common room earlier this morning. It was— it was empty so I thought I'd keep it to put candies or cat treats in it."

"Mh, maybe Ginny dropped it or something like that."

Hermione quietly nodded and opened another book, mostly to hide the blush on her cheeks. As Ron went quiet again, lost in his Potion homework, the young witch started to wonder how he would react if he knew Fred offered her candies. It was nothing really big, really, but somehow Hermione thought that Ron should not know about it. Not yet anyway.

"You smell like peppermint." Ron muttered without looking up from his paper.

"Do— do I?"

"Yes." He simply replied. "It's nice."

There goes the blush again.

-0-

Fifteen minutes. That is exactly how long Angelina's rant was. Fred and her were sitting in the library, a couple of tables behind his younger brother and Hermione, but the young man did not want to bother them – more especially _her_ – and it got Angelina upset. Fred did not really know why she acted this way, why she even helped him, but it would have felt rude to ask her to stop talking. After all, she was right:

"If you never dare to 'bother' her, then you'll just never _get_ her, Fred. That's how it works. Now if you don't get up and go talk to her, I'll go for you."

"You wouldn't."

"Clearly you don't know me enough, Weasley." She replied with a daring tone that made Fred quiver.

Without a word, the young guy stood up and headed toward Hermione and Ron. He was now a few steps behind them and he could hear what they were saying.

"You smell like peppermint."

Fred could not help but smile when he heard that. This morning, he checked everywhere in the common room and did not find his purple bag full of candies, nor his note, but he was not sure _she_ was the one who found it.

"It's nice." Ron added, making Hermione blush behind her big book.

Fred took a step back, realizing Angelina was right this morning during breakfast. "Your brother seems to have a thing for her, Fred, and I doubt you'd like to see them together _together_." she said. And as usual, she was right.

"Hi there." Fred said quickly, bending over to be closer to Hermione and Ron. "How's work going?"

The young girl jumped and raised her book as if it was some kind of shield, making both Ron and Fred laugh. The latter softly patted her shoulder, repeating "It's okay" between two giggles.

"I think it's the first time I've ever seen you in the library, Fred." Ron said when he finally calmed down.

"I'm here with Angelina. She didn't want to come alone, I guess." Fred shrugged.

Discretely – but not discretely _enough_ apparently – Hermione started looking for Angelina in the room, and when she finally saw her she gasped. Angelina was staring at her with a large grin on her face.

"I— I think I've got to go." Hermione suddenly stuttered.

She stuffed her books and quills in her bag and stood up so quickly she almost bump Fred's chin with her shoulder (he somehow managed to dodge the hit).

"I'll walk with you." Fred laughed. "Tis a dangerous world out there."

The witch did not say anything and simply waited for him to get his bag. They both waved Ron goodbye and left the library together. As the big doors closed behind them, Angelina could swear she saw Fred catching Hermione's free hand.


End file.
